“Husband,” said Mrs. North, “do you consider that a parallel case?  Mr. C. is not arguing, as I understand him, that slavery is better than freedom.  He is not persuading us to be slaves rather than free.  He takes these four millions of blacks as he finds them, in bondage, and he asks, What shall we do with them?  You say, Set them free.  He says, They are better off, as a race, in their present bondage, than they would be if made free, to remain here.  Not that they are better off than four millions of colored people, who had never been slaves, would be in a commonwealth by themselves.”

“I thank you, Mrs. North,” said I, “for your clear and correct statement of my position.  And now I will take up Mr. North’s parable about the horses, and apply it justly.  Let hay and grass be exceedingly scarce, and I had rather take my chance with an owner and be a horse, in a stable, and at work, than a horse roaming in search of food, chased away everywhere.  The comparison is between horse and horse, and man and man.”

“You make me think,” said Mrs. North, “of an interesting passage in a late magazine, written by a lady.  She was on a voyage to Cuba.  She arrived at Nassau.  She says, ’There were many negroes, together with whites of every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the side, saw for the first time the raw material out of which Northern Humanitarians have spun so fine a skein of compassion and sympathy.  You must allow me one heretical whisper,—­very small and low.  Nassau, and all we saw of it, suggested to us the unwelcome question whether compulsory labor be not better than none.’"[3]

   [Footnote 3:  Atlantic Monthly, May, 1859, p. 604.]

“There is,” said I, “this great question of right, with some, as to slavery:  As the State has a right to interpose and send vagrant children to school, has the world a right to interpose, in certain cases, and send certain races to labor for the good of mankind?  This was the question which broke upon the lady’s mind.  It is very interesting to see the question thus stated, and to notice the graceful touch of apology, and of playfulness, in the manner of stating it.  There was risk, and even peril, in making the suggestion, but, withal, some moral courage.  Still a lady may sometimes venture where it might not be safe for a gentleman to go.

“But the question between us is not, ‘Freedom or slavery,’ in the abstract, nor, Whether it is right, in any case, to reduce a people to slavery; but, What is best for our slaves?  All your proofs that freedom is better than slavery in the abstract, are nothing to the point.”

“It is the foulest blot on our nation in the eyes of the world,” said Mr. North, “that we have four millions of human beings in bondage.”

“Have you read ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin?’” I inquired.

“Ask me,” said he, pleasantly, “if I know how to read.  Every lover of liberty and hater of oppression has read ‘Uncle Tom.’”